The Infernal Heart

by R. L. King

  “Dr. Stone, look out!”

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Stone didn’t pause to question Grace’s warning, and that probably saved his life. He threw himself sideways, his shield springing up an instant before something slammed hard into his midsection with the force of a battering ram wielded by an ogre. He flew backward and tumbled, stunned, across the grass. The shield flared and died.

  For a brief moment he couldn’t concentrate. What had hit him? Whatever it was, it was stronger than anything he’d faced in a long time. It had to be, to take out the shield in one shot like that. His side lit up with pain, his brain struggling to form the pattern to get the shield back up, but instinctively he clutched the messenger bag close to him.

  Then, suddenly, bodies were piling on from all directions, holding him down, wrestling with his arms and legs, pummeling him and grasping at the bag. He couldn’t tell how many—three? Four? But in the park’s scant light he could pick out their crude features. Archie’s dust devils? Here? How the hell did they know where I am?

  One of them closed its hand around the bag’s strap and yanked, trying to wrench it free of Stone’s arm as another rocked his head back with a hard punch to the jaw.

  They’re after the bag!

  But they’re not magical. What knocked me down, then?

  Off to his right Grace yelled something. He couldn’t make out what it was, but she sounded terrified.

  Sudden rage filled him as another of the creatures grabbed the bag’s strap and added its strength to its companion’s. With a roar, he jerked his hands up and focused a wide-beam concussion spell. It hit the creatures hard and threw them backward with a series of loud grunts. Ignoring the pain in his side, Stone leaped to his feet, slinging the bag’s strap over his head for a tighter hold, in time to see four of the things arrayed in a semicircle around him, each one scrambling back up with frightening speed.

  It wasn’t they that captured his attention, though. That honor belonged to what floated behind them, watching the proceedings from its vantage point ten feet back and three feet off the ground.

  A tall, thin figure in a long black coat.

  Archie.

  So it wasn’t enough to send the hired help—the boss had shown up to finish the job this time. And to take his new body for a test drive, it looked like.

  “Ms. Ruiz!” he got out between breaths. “Run! Get out of here!”

  And then, all at once, nothing made sense anymore. Where there had been four of the dust devils before, now there were at least ten, all of them rushing toward him with their arms outstretched, their mouths open, their dead eyes blazing with anger. Behind them, Archie waved his arms and the sky was full of flying, leathery things, wheeling and banking, peeling off in singles or small groups to dive-bomb Stone.

  He staggered backward, bringing his hands up to protect his face, still struggling to get the pattern for the shield spell past a sudden miasma of rushing thoughts that weren’t his own. Something else slammed into him, and once more he felt himself hit the ground—but now it wasn’t grass. It roiled and undulated beneath him, pulling him down, reaching out slick, sucker-filled tentacles to grasp at his arms, his legs, around his neck—

  “Dr. Stone!”

  It was Grace again, he was sure of it. But she sounded so far away, as if she were calling out to him from the bottom of a mile-deep mine shaft. How had she gotten so far away so quickly? Had they taken her? How had she—

  “Dr. Stone! What are you doing? Lord Jesus, help us! Protect us from these foul demons!”

  He’s doing it again! He’s messing with your mind, damn it! None of this is real!

  Grace’s voice grew louder as he fought back Archie’s foul influence, her prayers ringing out in a shaking but strong voice.

  The tentacles disappeared, the ground returning to familiar grass. The leathery flying creatures faded, their shrieks dissipating, as did most of the dust-creatures. Not all of them, though. As the screaming discordant thoughts retreated from Stone’s mind, he realized he was on his back again, with the original four creatures pounding on him. Somehow he’d unconsciously looped both arms through the bag’s strap, gripping it to his chest with a ferocity he didn’t know he could muster.

  The problem was, that left his head unprotected. Another rock-hard fist slammed it to one side, and he only just got the shield—or at least a weakened version of it—up in time to avoid getting his skull crushed.

  Above him, Archie laughed, his wide mouth stretching into an impossibly, inhumanly wide grin. His eyes burned crimson-bright. “Give me what I want, Stone, and I may spare you and your little whore—at least for a while.”

  At his words, Stone’s rage ignited with even more fury than before. “No!” he screamed, flinging his arms out and sending the creatures tumbling again with even more power than before. Two of them ripped in half at the torso and collapsed into heaps; another’s left leg and right arm tore free, leaving it to writhe on the ground as it waited for them to reform.

  Stone jumped up and pointed both hands at Archie. “Didn’t your mother—or whatever you sorry lot have—teach you any manners?” he growled, and let the power loose.

  It flew from his hands and hit something invisible in front of Archie, dissipating harmlessly away into the night.

  Archie laughed again, throwing his head back with the force of it. “Oh, Stone, it will be my pleasure when you learn your part in my plans. It’s been fun playing with you, but I still don’t think you quite comprehend the extent of what I can do. For now, though, I’ll settle for taking what I’ve come for.” He waved a languid hand.

  Stone lifted off the ground, gasping for air as something unseen constricted his throat. His hands flew to his neck as hot swelling rose, blocking his breathing to a useless wheeze. Black points flowered behind his eyes, and somewhere in the distant periphery, inconsequential next to his desperate effort to get a breath, he felt the bag begin to tug away from him.

  And then another voice came. “Begone, demon!” it shouted, rising higher and louder. Grace? No…I told her to run… “Begone in the name of Our Lord God, and Our Savior, Jesus Christ! Begone and trouble us no more, in the name of Jesus!”

  With a massive effort of will, Stone dragged his focus away from the rising blackness and the panic at being unable to breathe for just a second, long enough to crack open his eyes. He stared at what was before him.

  The remaining whole dust devil hung back several feet, staring up at Archie. The one on the ground remained there, even though its arm and leg had grown back by now.

  Grace stood between Stone and Archie, her feet planted wide, her trembling arms locked out straight in front of her, both hands gripping her silver crucifix. Stone couldn’t see her face—but he could see Archie’s.

  Amazingly, impossibly, Archie had hesitated.

  Fear showed in his red pinprick eyes, and his wide rictus grin had faltered.

  Was he—shaking?

  At the center of his chest, something red glowed behind his white shirt, even more brightly than his eyes. It looked as if he had a tiny, pulsing red sun embedded there.

  All of this, Stone saw in the space of two or three seconds, before whatever force choked him and held him suspended vanished. He crashed in a heap to the ground, clawing at his throat and gasping in huge gulps of the night air.

  When he looked up again a few seconds later, Archie was gone, and Grace was hurrying toward him. She threw herself down to her knees next to him, eyes wide and face chalk-pale, and grabbed his shoulder. “Dr. Stone! Are you all right?”

  He nodded quickly, coughing, not trusting himself to speak yet. What he saw past her made him grip her arm and struggle to rise.

  The two remaining dust devils—the whole one and the reconstituted one—were lumbering toward them.

  Stone jammed his hand in his pocket and thrust the BMW’s keys at
Grace, along with the leather bag. “Take these,” he rasped. “Run. Get to the car. Don’t let anyone in. If I don’t show up in five minutes, get out. Go to the church.”

  She stared at him in horror. “Dr. Stone, I can’t—”

  “Do it,” he snapped, dragging himself to his feet and facing the oncoming creatures. His shield flared up around him. “He won’t come after you.”

  She paused only a second longer. Then she grabbed the key, slung the bag over her shoulder and took off at a sprint across the park toward where they’d left the car.

  As Stone had expected, the two dust devils turned immediately in her direction. Archie had left them here to get the bag, figuring he’d be an easy mark now that he was weakened. That’s what you get for sending mindless idiots to do your dirty work for you.

  “Hey! You lot!” he called. “It’s me you’ve got to worry about!”

  They didn’t turn, but continued running toward the car. Grace had almost reached it now, and the things were speeding up.

  Don’t say I didn’t give you a chance. Stone picked his shots with care, pointing his hands first at one and then the other like he was aiming a handgun. The first narrow-beam concussion attack hit the left-side creature right where he wanted it to. The back of its head exploded into a cloud of dust, its body spinning and dropping to the ground. That’s one.

  By that time, though, the second one had gotten out of range of his spell. He couldn’t keep the beam tight enough over that distance to breach the dust devil’s armored skin. He flicked his glance forward in time to see Grace fling open the BMW’s door, dive inside, and slam it shut behind her. Good—she and the bag were safe, at least for the moment. But he still had the second dust devil to deal with before they could get the hell out of here.

  Still coughing, still hurting (he was going to feel like crap in the morning, he just knew it) he took off at a sprint after the creature. At least it tried to be a sprint. In practice, it came off looking and feeling more like a particularly determined shamble.

  The problem was, the dust devil was shambling faster than he was, and it had a solid head start. If it reached the car, he was sure it was strong enough to put its fist through the window. He didn’t know if Grace would have it together well enough to get out of there in time—or if she even knew how to drive.

  He skidded to a stop, head and side pounding, and gestured with one hand in its direction, telekinetically grabbing hold of its jacket and dragging it backward.

  The thing shrieked and flailed, throwing itself back and forth as it tried to break free of Stone’s hold, but it couldn’t get enough leverage to use its strength. Its heels tore furrows in the grass as it skated closer. When it was close enough, Stone threw another tight-beam concussion blast at its head, and pumped his fist as it burst like a dried-out pumpkin dropped off a ten-story building. It made one last yelp of pain and dropped to the ground, where it twitched for a couple seconds before returning to dust.

  Stone dropped to his knees, puffing. How had Archie known where he’d gone? Was the demon still somehow able to spy on Stone even in a corporeal body? Nobody else knew where he’d been planning to go tonight—he hadn’t even told Grace the address of the Goodwin house before they drove over, and Patricia, who’d given him the address in the first place, had no idea when (or even if) he planned to go there.

  He couldn’t think about this now. They had to get out of here. He hauled himself to his feet as Grace came running up, the leather bag containing the documents still slung over her shoulder. When she grabbed his arm and helped him the rest of the way up, he felt her hands shaking.

  “Th-that was Archie, wasn’t it?” she whispered.

  Stone nodded wearily and began an unsteady trudge toward the car. Now that the threat was over, the pain was making itself known in previously unexplored ways.

  “Come on—let’s get you back to the car. Can you even drive? You should go to the emergency room.”

  Stone wasn’t sure he could drive. His ribs were telling him in no uncertain terms that Archie’s wallop had at least cracked a couple of them, if not outright broken them. And that had been through the shield! If he hadn’t gotten the barrier up in time—

  “Not…sure,” he said. “Can you drive? I need to…get someplace where I can deal with this.”

  “I don’t know how to drive,” she said. “We couldn’t afford a car, so I never learned.”

  Damn. He was afraid of that. “All right. All right. We need to get out of here. I’m sure that little fight attracted attention, and we…don’t want to be here when the authorities arrive.” He gritted his teeth. “Don’t know…if I can make it back to Palo Alto, though.”

  “We’ll go to my apartment,” she said. “It’s a lot closer.”

  “But—your grandmother—”

  “My grandmother will have to deal with it,” she said firmly. “She won’t turn you away if you’re hurt.”

  They reached the car. Grace unlocked the doors and handed him back the key. “Come on. You can do it. It’s not too far.”

  “Right…” He dropped into the driver’s seat, biting back a scream as his ribs protested the ill-treatment, and slumped back with his head against the headrest.

  A moment later, Grace was in the passenger seat, the bag in her lap. “Come on,” she said encouragingly. “You can do it.”

  All he wanted to do was sit there and rest, but that wasn’t possible. Archie might not come after them again now, but that didn’t mean they were safe forever. He switched on the car, gripped the wheel, and pulled out into traffic. He could hear the sounds of sirens, but they were still some distance away—hopefully not close enough for any of them to pull him over for erratic driving.

  To take his mind off the pain, he glanced over at Grace. “What…did you do?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You drove him off. I saw you do it.”

  “It wasn’t me,” she said, but she didn’t sound certain. “I—I just did the same thing I did with the other one. Prayed for strength and for God to drive it off.”

  “So he’s…vulnerable to you himself,” he said. “Not just his little helper monkeys.” The spiking pain in his side was making it hard to get a deep breath. “Good to know.”

  “Just drive,” she said, looking worried as the car veered into the other lane. “You need to concentrate.”

  Miraculously (perhaps literally, was Stone’s wry thought) they made it to Grace’s apartment without getting pulled over, causing any accidents, or hitting any parked cars or late-night pedestrians. He parked in front of the apartment building, retaining—barely—the presence of mind to put a disregarding spell on the car. By the time Grace got him up the flight of stairs, he was staggering like a drunk. He leaned against the wall as she fumbled her key into the lock, then let her hustle him inside.

  At least that’s what she tried to do. But then, just as they crossed the apartment’s threshold, she stopped.

  “What is it?” he asked. All he wanted to do now was get inside where he could sit down before he fell down.

  “I’m not sure. I feel…strange. Like it’s hard to go in.”

  “Hard to go in?”

  “I can’t explain it. I feel like…like something’s resisting me. Like I’m pushing against something.” She faced him, eyes wide. “What’s going on?”

  He almost said he didn’t know, but then his gaze fell on the bag she carried. “Of course…” he muttered.

  “What?”

  “Give me the bag.” He braced himself against the doorframe and reached out for it.

  She did so without question, but still looked confused. “Why? What is it about—”

  He held it up, nodding toward it. “There’s something in there your wards don’t like. They don’t want it inside your house.”

  “What are you talking about? You
mean those…things you said you saw around the house, that keep evil out?”

  “Yes.”

  “So…something in that bag is evil?” She looked at it fearfully, then back inside the house. So far there was no sign of her grandmother.

  “Probably. I haven’t looked yet.” He swiped his free hand across his forehead, which was dripping sweat down into his eyes. He had to sit down. “Give me a moment—I’ll put a simple little protective charm on the bag. It should fool the ward long enough for us to get inside, at least.”

  “Can you do that?” She regarded him doubtfully. “You look like you’re about to faint.”

  “I am, but no helping it. I’m not leaving the bag in the car. Just—let me concentrate for a moment.”

  She nodded, stationing herself in the doorway where she could keep watch. “Hurry up if you can, before Abuelita hears us.”

  Stone tightened his unsteady grip on the bag’s strap. Concentration was even harder now—forming the pattern for even a simple short-term ward was like trying to do complex mathematics in his head in the middle of an underwater rave. Finally, he closed his eyes to block out the worst of the outside stimuli and focused on the simple, clean form of the spell, weaving it around the bag and blocking off the malevolent magical aura seeping from inside it. It wouldn’t hold for long, but it wouldn’t have to.

  After a couple of minutes, he slumped back against the outside wall. “There…” he whispered, offering the bag to her. “Try that.”

  She took it and took a step inside. “Better,” she said in relief, coming back out to help him. “Let’s get inside. Maybe she’s asleep and won’t even notice us.”